by Karin Erlandsson ; translated by Annie Prime ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 6, 2024
A sturdy start, with adventure, heartbreak, and touches of magic.
A child with a special gift comes between two rivals searching for a cursed stone that grants wishes in this award-winning series opener from Finland that’s been translated from the original Swedish.
Pearl diver Miranda, who lost an arm to a rose-shark when she was 11, becomes utterly obsessed with finding the elusive eye stone, much like her long-gone parents and many others. Syrsa, a similarly abandoned child who’s also missing an arm thanks to a shark attack, tags along willy-nilly. At first, Syrsa only seems like an annoying obligation, but when the laughing, cheery urchin turns out to have a rare ability to hear the pearls (and perhaps the eye stone itself), their seagoing quest takes on the character of a frantic flight as Miranda tries to keep her young charge out of the clutches of Iberis, a scary, ruthless, relentless stranger who’s even more bent on securing the prize. The pearls in this world do not come from oysters but are precious items of various colors, formed from mud, guarded by sharks, and scattered along riverbeds and seabeds. Syrsa’s sometimes comical stream of chatter gradually breaks down Miranda’s stiff-necked reserve, such that by episode’s end, their relationship has become closer and warmer. The quest is also transformed, but only after a separation and a mutual rescue that comes at a devastating cost. Characters read white.
A sturdy start, with adventure, heartbreak, and touches of magic. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: June 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781912868735
Page Count: 252
Publisher: Young Dedalus
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
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by Karin Erlandsson ; translated by Annie Prime
BOOK REVIEW
by Karin Erlandsson ; translated by Annie Prime
BOOK REVIEW
by Karin Erlandsson ; translated by Annie Prime
by Dav Pilkey & illustrated by Dav Pilkey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 28, 2012
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
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by Dav Pilkey ; illustrated by Dav Pilkey
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by Dav Pilkey ; illustrated by Dav Pilkey color by Jose Garibaldi & Wes Dzioba
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by Dav Pilkey ; illustrated by Dav Pilkey ; color by Jose Garibaldi & Wes Dzioba
BOOK REVIEW
by Dav Pilkey ; illustrated by Dav Pilkey ; color by Jose Garibaldi & Wes Dzioba
by Dav Pilkey ; illustrated by Dav Pilkey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 15, 2013
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride.
Zipping back and forth in time atop outsized robo–bell bottoms, mad inventor Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) legs his way to center stage in this slightly less-labored continuation of episode 9.
The action commences after a rambling recap and a warning not to laugh or smile on pain of being forced to read Sarah Plain and Tall. Pilkey first sends his peevish protagonist back a short while to save the Earth (destroyed in the previous episode), then on to various prehistoric eras in pursuit of George, Harold and the Captain. It’s all pretty much an excuse for many butt jokes, dashes of off-color humor (“Tippy pressed the button on his Freezy-Beam 4000, causing it to rise from the depths of his Robo-Pants”), a lengthy wordless comic and two tussles in “Flip-o-rama.” Still, the chase kicks off an ice age, the extinction of the dinosaurs and the Big Bang (here the Big “Ka-Bloosh!”). It ends with a harrowing glimpse of what George and Harold would become if they decided to go straight. The author also chucks in a poopy-doo-doo song with musical notation (credited to Albert P. Einstein) and plenty of ink-and-wash cartoon illustrations to crank up the ongoing frenzy.
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-17536-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
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More In The Series
by Dav Pilkey ; illustrated by Dav Pilkey
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BOOK REVIEW
by Dav Pilkey ; illustrated by Dav Pilkey color by Jose Garibaldi & Wes Dzioba
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by Dav Pilkey ; illustrated by Dav Pilkey ; color by Jose Garibaldi & Wes Dzioba
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